{"id":4141,"date":"2010-07-06T00:01:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T04:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=4141"},"modified":"2016-06-17T13:29:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T17:29:24","slug":"celebration-giveaway-walser-and-bolano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2010\/07\/06\/celebration-giveaway-walser-and-bolano\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebration Giveaway: Walser and Bola\u00f1o"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 1, this blog had its two-year anniversary.\u00a0To celebrate I thought that today, rather than post a review (though a review of a really really good book will be up in a couple of days), I would celebrate the anniversary with a giveaway of not one but two<\/em> books.<\/p>\n

First, Robert Walser’s Microscripts<\/em>.\u00a0I have an unread copy still in its shrinkwrap.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year I read and completely enjoyed Walser’s The Tanners<\/a><\/em>. It is a classic book that finally made its way to the English language with the help of New Directions Publishing\u00a0and\u00a0through the wonderful talents of Susan Bernofsky.\u00a0I recommend it completely.\u00a0A month or so ago, New Directions released another Walser collection, Microscripts<\/em>.\u00a0Walser developed a minute script he used so he could write stories on any found paper lying around.\u00a0An entire story might find itself on a\u00a0postcard,\u00a0 or a ticket stub, whatever was there.\u00a0For years the script was thought indecipherable, but through years of diligent scholarship and scrutiny, these texts were produced in intelligible German.\u00a0Again through the talents of Susan Bernofsky, these short stories are available to us.<\/p>\n

But this book is more than just text. New Directions, with its usual high standards of publishing has created a beautiful book\u00a0(it also just released the gloriously produced Nox <\/em>by Anne Carson, which I hope to review soon). This is hardbound and contains complete color scans of the original microscripts in their original size.\u00a0So we get to see that business card Walser wrote on and his tiny script. On the facing page is the translation.\u00a0At the back of the book, along with an essay by Walter Benjamin, are the German translations of the text.<\/p>\n

I’m afraid that I can’t offer an opinion on the stories themselves because I haven’t read most of them, but what I’ve sampled is quirky and astoundingly intricate.<\/p>\n

Second, Roberto Bola\u00f1o’s Amulet<\/em>. I have an extra unread paperback edition for someone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

New Directions is also the publisher behind this giveaway.\u00a0Over the past few years they’ve steadily released Bola\u00f1o’s work for us, and I’m always anxious to see what’s next.\u00a0This is one of the ones I haven’t read yet. I’ve been saving this book for a bit of a dry spell.\u00a0Several trusted sources claim it is one of his best, and since I don’t have many more of his works to read, I’ve been saving it — but not for too much longer.\u00a0Perhaps whoever wins\u00a0my extra copy of Amulet<\/em> will accompany me in a read-along\u00a0when the time comes.<\/p>\n

Now, imagine I have two hats, one for Walser and one for Bola\u00f1o.\u00a0To win, leave a comment below\u00a0indicating which\u00a0hat\u00a0 you’d like\u00a0to throw your name in. You can, by the way, through your name in each hat if you’re interested in\u00a0both titles, though you will only be allowed to win one of them.\u00a0So your chances of winning will go up since you’ll put your name in each of the two hats. However, your name won’t be entered to the same hat twice, so multiple comments be counted (though you can certainly leave multiple comments about the books or the process or whatever).<\/p>\n

I will draw the two winners on this Friday, July 9.\u00a0Since I’m not sure when I’ll do the drawing, whether early that day or late, please feel free to enter until I’ve announced the winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mookse and the Gripes is two years old! To celebrate, let’s have a giveaway! Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1008],"tags":[],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-4141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-giveaway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Amulet.jpg?fit=346%2C530&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-14N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4141"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18715,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4141\/revisions\/18715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4141"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}